


Nothingness and Everything

by MissCeliaKnight



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Mute Link, Selectively Mute Link
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 09:11:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14745986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCeliaKnight/pseuds/MissCeliaKnight
Summary: When he’d first woken up everything was new, tangible, bitter or deliciously fought for. He wanted to climb everything, hold everything, devour everything. It had been a very physical, interactive thing whereas this…This made him wonder about old friends. Where did your spirit go after it was done fighting? Did it vanish into everything and nothing like the horse did? Were you only able to vaguely pull yourself together in a wispy memory at the sight of where you last took in the world?Was that why he couldn’t ride the horse? Because it was a memory, an echo of what it used to be?Yet so many people had whispered about this echo… so he wanted to be sure.





	Nothingness and Everything

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of feelings once I finally managed to ride this horse.  
> More so extended poetry.

It had started as a conquest.

Link had seen the light from a far off distance. An ethereal glow, as if a luminous stone was being made into a mist. He’d quiet literally dropped everything he was doing to go inspect it, teleporting to the shrine he knew was nearby.

He was never direct in approaching things- that’s how Guardians or Lynel’s got you and he couldn’t afford to be owned by anyone but himself.  So he climbed to the top of the mountain, teeth chattering from the cold.

He peered at the cherry tree overlooking a shallow pond he’d only ever visited once before. Something about the scene had always instilled a feeling of something missing- as if there should have been more.

He had been right, and left him awestruck. He’d only ever seen a single blupee, and it was always the one by the Fairy Fountain a ways from the Kakariko village. The singular glowing little rabbit-owl hybrid had always excited a fire in his belly that kept him low to the ground and an arrow at the ready.

It made him wonder if it had wandered all the way from Satori mountain just to be there. If it had made it’s way from all of its fellows here just to be near the fairy or if it was by design it end up there.

There were whispers of something being on this mountain, and he was now here before it without an offering or perhaps this was an offering to the hero of Hyrule. Regardless, he didn’t bother with the debate- he just knew what he wanted to do in that instant.

There were so many blupees he was sure they’d all scatter at once if he tried to hit them- Goddess forbid he miss. Not to mention there was there giant horse-type creature that he had the desperate urge to mount.

He paused to take photos, feeling as though the otherworldly fog made them come out poorly. They seemed too far away, too blurry, too shaken from the distance of the cold to be viewed properly. He took out his paraglider, fingers stiff. He’d practiced gliding down onto horses a handful of times, but he wasn’t too particularly skilled at it. He felt more comfortable silently landing behind it and trying to mount it that way.

Some of the blupees scattered at the sight of him, but the unusual horse didn’t seem to pay them much mind. Perhaps it simply disregarded them as skittish and being shaken simply by a passing breeze.

He was grateful they weren’t a giveaway for his presence. He threw himself onto it’s back with a yell, the horse immediately bucking him off into the shallow pool. He landed face first and was completely soaked, cherry blossom petals clinging to his person.

His first ever horse had been one of the more wild tempermented ones. He hadn’t even known that was an issue amongst people trying to catch and tame them- he just liked how it looked compared to the others. He had been thrown the first time, but he persisted, quietly following after it and mounting it over and over until it finally grew tired of trying to get rid of him.

He’d named her Mareena.

He assumed this one to be no different- until he looked up just in time to see it vanish. He jerked his head around, water trickling around him. He immediately got up and rushed back off to the mountain hoping it would reappear if it thought he’d left. He scaled up to his vantage point and waited, the horse appearing out of thin air.

It was as if it simply dissolved into nothingness and everything. When he teleported from place to place, he’d always felt like he was being pulled apart and put back together strand by strand. He still felt apart of things, like he was moving through heavy winds or thick waters during the teleportation. He still felt like he could be followed, like he was still tethered to everything- like he was heavy.

The horse however… it made him wonder about the world in a way that was different from when he first had woken up. It made him wonder if at some point sunlight made sound before touching the world. It made him wonder if the wind was from the exhale of trees. It made him wonder if flowers got their color from things that had died underneath them.

When he’d first woken up everything was new, tangible, bitter or deliciously fought for. He wanted to climb everything, hold everything, devour everything. It had been a very physical, interactive thing whereas this…

This made him wonder about old friends. Where did your spirit go after it was done fighting? Did it vanish into everything and nothing like the horse did? Were you only able to vaguely pull yourself together in a wispy memory at the sight of where you last took in the world?

Was that why he couldn’t ride the horse? Because it was a memory, an echo of what it used to be?

Yet so many people had whispered about this echo… so he wanted to be sure. He clenched and unclenched his hands to regain feeling in them, his soaked clothing becoming frosted at the height. He waited until the horse turned it’s back to him before he flew down and tried to mount it once more.

He was distracted.

It had felt solid, he could rest on it like any other horse. It’s main was like a collective gathering of spider silk. The noises it made while trying to get him off sounded as grounding as any other bustle of life.

He fell into the water again- the water. He hadn’t heard it making noise as it touched the water. He watched it vanish once more. He got up and once again rushed off to the mountain top to see, but the glow from the fog faded… and it didn’t come back.

Link sucked his teeth, but climbed down and tried to remember what he’d been doing before this.

 

* * *

 

The teal glow was back in the distance- meaning the horse was back. It was like a beacon, calling to him from the other side. Realistically only calling to him from the other side of Hyrule, but it always felt like there was more to it than that. He took a final bite of his fish before tossing it over the side and slashing an ice sword over his campfire to extinguish it. He stripped of his current clothes, changing into the vest and headpiece from the Rito, and the pants of the Shika that would allow him to be silent.

He pulled out his Shikah Slate and let the technology of ancient ones take him.

He climbed up once more, smiling at the organized gathering of the blupees around the water. His smile faded as he realized none of them touched the water, yet that’s the only place the horse seemed to be.

Were they scared? Had they been called by it but knew better? What was the relationship?

He once again decided to forego the blupees in favor of the horse. It had been a long while since he’d seen it’s glow… and this time he came prepared and practiced.

He was patient, looking into the haze from a distance before paragliding down onto it’s back. The horse whinnied in protest and once again he didn’t hear it trampling into the water. He clenched his legs to either side of it, clinging to it’s mane and desperately trying to sooth it with gentle cooings.

With eyes squeezed shut and the silence from the water, part of him felt like the horse was flying.

It stopped. It didn’t neigh in approval, it didn’t stop just to try to buck him off once more… it just… stopped. He hesitantly pulled his face away from spider web silk strands, clinging to the horse as if it would change its mind.

It hadn’t.

He glanced down to stare at the iridescent colors adoring it’s body on a soft backdrop of blue. He peered around to it’s face- faces. He'd seen many unusual things, yet that still startled him.

Two.

He quietly slipped from the horse- no. It couldn’t be called a horse. It could be ridden like one, it’s body was similar… but it wasn’t a horse.

He peered into four sets of sunset eyes that called attention to themselves against the perfect white. It’s mane was different than snow; snow reflected light, whereas it’s mane seemed to give off light.

He felt guilt pool in his stomach, numb to the feeling of water up to his ankles. He reached out to touch it, the creature leaning it’s head down into his hand. He took in a deep, pained breath.

He felt like he was drowning from the inside.

He could touch it, yet there was no warmth, yet there was no chill, yet there was no weight in his hand. It just was. His sight of it had been blurry until he’d mounted it. Touch felt like lies and callous had ruined the sensation.

But he felt deeply. He felt an immeasurable sadness he wasn’t sure belonged to him, but it could have for all he knew. He wasn’t quite sure of himself and who he used to be.

But it pooled with him like a endless well that never overflowed, even as it settled near the lip. He exhaled, and it was like a bucket being gently pressed underneath it.

He sobbed.

He pressed his face to it’s mane and sobbed and he wasn’t sure what for. But he felt it so deeply and so strongly he had to press all of his weight into the horse to keep from collapsing into grief. A dim glow light fireflies nestled underneath his eyelids, catching a way in through his tears.

He felt loss.

He hadn’t felt this way when he’d seen friends of old. He’d remembered them of course, but it was like remembering a passage from a story. It didn’t feel like it belonged to him, it felt foreign. He’d vaguely felt this way upon recalling a single memory with Zelda, but that was it.

When recalling memories, he’d never felt like he was there and that was something he’d done. It was more like watching himself in a dream- he felt detached and the edges of it all felt fuzzy.  
This was so much more.

This was everything he’d felt numb to for the months he’d scoured Hyrule. This was a feeling he’d worried was unattainable. This was the taste of mist and salt. Even if he wasn’t sure it was his, he understood now.

There weren’t words for it, but he had never been the kind of person to use them much anyway. He just felt; he felt exhausted, he felt sorrow, he felt guilt, he felt nostalgia for something he’d never known... he felt everything like a gentle rolling of waves.

He felt until it overwhelmed him.

He pulled back to look at the creature, reaching up to stroke it once more, as if to thank it. It leaned down and let him, eyes blinking each of their own accord. Each as if it saw something else and were telling different parts of itself what it saw.

To see the water means to hear it’s ripples. To see the cherry tree means to smell something floral. To see the boy means to be touched and overcome.

It was as if it was telling him there was so much to look out for, so much to see and you’d never see it all.

It didn’t instill a feeling of hopelessness, but rather relief. He felt relieved he’d never see everything, every nook and cranny. He felt relieved to know he would at some point be able to rest properly.

To feel the constant exhaustion fade from his bones. To feel the weight of this kind of duty melt away. To be able to collapse and fade into blood and ash until the world overtook him and he would be nothing more than dirt and fresh fields.

He felt… hopeful.

He hadn’t felt like that since he’d awoken. He felt unsure, uneasy, and uncertain. He’d felt proud, strong, and courageous. But he’d never felt hopeful. He never felt as though he could do what was asked of him by so many all on his own.

He hadn’t understood what one hundred years could possibly change. But he understood now, for he could see it for himself. The image finally made sense.

Everything was gone.

All of the power all of the upper handed and underhanded fiendishness… It had drifted away into time.

That was the answer… so he felt hope.

“...Thank you.” He whispered softly, voice trembling from the pressure of words. It gently pulled away from him as if to acknowledge his words…

Then it took off into nothingness and everything and Link could feel the cool water around his ankles again as the well inside of him emptied itself.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr version:  
> http://missceliaknight.tumblr.com/post/174217134161/nothingness-and-everything


End file.
